UU History Month

We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:

1. SUNDAY The inherent worth and dignity of every person.

2. MONDAY Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

3. TUESDAY Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.

4. WEDNESDAY A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

5. THURSDAY The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.

6. FRIDAY The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.

7. SATURDAY Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

 SUNDAY: The inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Patience and Silence

How quiet it is when we have the patience to be silent.
How much we can learn in moments like these.
We can learn to have patience with ourselves,
to better understand and like who and what we are.
We can learn to have patience with others,
to better listen to what they say and how they feel.
We can learn to have patience with life,
to better work with it, rather than against it.

 

How much do we need silence:
     Silence for truth so that we may learn wisdom,
     Silence for wisdom so that we may love,
     Silence for love so that we may be just,
Silence for justice so that we may live fully.
May we be more patient and more silent,
so that we may proceed with courage and compassion.           Charles A. Gaines

 "The great events of world history are, at bottom, profoundly unimportant. In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life of the individual. This alone makes history, here alone do the great transformations first take place, and the whole future, the whole history of the world, ultimately spring as a gigantic summation from these hidden sources in individuals. In our most private and most subjective lives we are not only the passive witnesses of our age, and its sufferers, but also its makers."      Carl G. Jung

 "Being human is the most difficult and the most religious of all our undertakings, for being human means accepting the sacredness and fragility of one's own life. It means living every moment with tragedy at hand and grace close by. Being human means forever trying to settle one-self in all of the unsettling situations of life. It means accepting the freedom and unknowability of the human enterprise. It means that anything can happen to us. We can gain the world and lose God or forfeit life and find love. Being human means reaching for the stars and the person next to us at the same time; it means also missing the stars and the person nearby. Being human is the most difficult and the most religious of all our undertakings, for being human means accepting the sacredness and fragility of one's own life."  Anthony Padovano

The Shirk Ethic

O God of Work and Leisure

Teach me to shirk on occasion,

Not only that I may work more effectively

But also that I may enjoy life more abundantly.

Enable me to understand that the earth

Magically continues spinning on its axis

Even when I am not tending the vineyards.

Permit me to breath more easily

Know the destiny of the race

Rests not on my shoulders alone.

Deliver me from false prophets who urge me

To “repent and shirk no more.”

I pray for the grace on me.

They faithful shirker.             Richard S. Gilbert

MONDAY:
Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

 "The World is my country, to do good is my religion. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe."
     Thomas Paine

 "All morality is based upon this central truth. That men and women in their different ways must meet each other's needs, and in the doing of it find a larger, freer life for themselves."      Lillian Smith

"When Rabbi Ammi's hour to die came, he wept bitterly; and his nephew asked, 'But why do you weep? Is there any Torah you have not learned or taught? Is there any kindness you have not practiced? And you never accepted public office, or sat in judgment of others.' The Rabbi replied: 'That is why I weep: I was given the ability to extend justice, but never carried it out.' "       Ancient Jewish Midrash

TUESDAY:
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.

"Here may no one be altogether stranger, no honesty of thought ignored, no depth of feeling easily dismissed, no life belittled and no life shut out. May whatever clarity of mind and heart we bring be humbly treasured, brought to bear toward word and person. May fellowship be treasured most of all, and paths to its sustaining and renewing sought and found. May growth of mind and spirit be our purpose; such new understanding as shall lead us to new ways in which to blend our lives."     Donald Johnston

 "A rabbi spoke with the Lord about Heaven and Hell. 'I will show you Hell,' said the Lord, and they went into a room which had a large pot of stew in the middle. The smell was delicious, but around the pot sat people who were famished and desperate. All were holding spoons with very long handles which reached to the pot, but because the handles of the spoons were longer than their arms, it was impossible to get the stew back into their mouths. Their suffering was terrible. 'Now, I will show you Heaven,' said the Lord, and they went into an identical room. There was a similar pot of stew, and the people had identical spoons, but they were well nourished and happy, talking with each other. At first the rabbi did not understand. 'It is simple,' said the Lord, 'you see, they have learned to feed each other.' "      Ancient Jewish Story

 "If that which is most holy lies within the human person; if the greatest power in the world shines flickering and uncertain from each individual heart, it is then easy to see the value of human associations dedicated to the nurturing of that light: the couple, the family, the religious community. For the power of good in anyone of us must at times waver, but when a group together is dedicated to the nurturing of the power, it is rare for the light to grow dim in all individuals at the same moment. So we borrow courage and wisdom from one another. In this lies the power of institutions."       Eileen Karpeles

WEDNESDAY:
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

"Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences You must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision."
     Thomas Jefferson

 "Do not believe in the strength of traditions even if they have been held in honor for many generations and in many places; do not believe anything because many people speak of it; do not believe on the strength of sagas of old times; do not believe that which you have yourself imagined, thinking a god has inspired you. Believe nothing which depends only on the authority of your masters or of priests. After investigation, believe that which you yourself have tested and found reasonable, and which is for your good and that of others."
     Tibetan Buddhist Teaching

 "The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but to be in awe when contemplating the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. The important thing is not to stop questioning; never lose a holy curiosity."     Albert Einstein

 "I shall no longer ask myself if this or that is expedient, but only if it is right. I shall do this, not because I am noble or unselfish, but because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie. I do it because I am no longer able to aspire to the highest with one part of myself and deny it with another."      Alan Paton

 "Being a Unitarian Universalist means taking personal responsibility for your own religious life. No one will try to re-make you religiously. We won't offer you 'final and absolute truths' or rigid dogma. Instead, we try to provide a stimulating and congenial atmosphere in which you may seek answers. ..in which you may ask questions. ..in which you are free to discover the best that is in you. We reject the idea that a book or institution is superior to the conscience and intellect of a morally responsible person. We affirm that your spiritual well-being is yours to determine. No one else can live your life for you."
     The Unitarian Universalist Church of Greensboro, North Carolina

 THURSDAY:
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.

 "As Democracy is our freest form of social life so is Unitarian (Universal)ism the freest religious life, and like Democracy, the Unitarian (Universalist ) religion depends upon the separate thinking of every Unitarian (Universalist) to give it significance and vitality. We do value one another's thinking. We respect one another's search. We honor it, even where it differs from our own. We resist imposing our perception of truth upon one another. Embracing a kind of theological pluralism, we affirm the human importance of our joint quest for meaning in life without insisting upon the ultimacy of any single set of theological criteria. And not only do we tolerate one another's beliefs, at our best we vigorously encourage their development and articulation. At our best, we move beyond negativism to a fundamental trust in our own and one another's inherent ability to make life meaningful."      John P. Marquand

"If there is one conclusion to which human experience unmistakably points it is that democratic ends demand democratic means for their realization. Authoritarian methods now offer themselves to us in new guises. They come to us claiming to serve the ultimate ends of freedom and equity in a classless society. Or they recommend adoption of a totalitarian regime in order to fight totalitarianism. ...Our first defense is to realize that democracy can be served only by the slow day-to-day adoption and contagious diffusion in every phase of our common life of methods that are identical with the ends to be reached and that recourse to monistic, wholesale, absolutist procedures is a betrayal of human freedom, no matter in what guise it presents itself. ...At the end as at the beginning, the democratic method is as fundamentally simple and as immensely difficult as is the energetic, unflagging, unceasing creation of an ever present new road upon which we can walk together."      John Dewey

 "I think that one of our most important tasks is to convince ourselves and others that there's nothing to fear in difference; that difference, in fact, is one of the healthiest and most invigorating of human characteristics without which life would become meaningless. Here lies the power of the liberal way: not in making the whole world Unitarian (Universalist), but in helping ourselves and others to see some of the possibilities inherent in viewpoints other than one's own; in encouraging the free interchange of ideas; in welcoming fresh approaches to the problems of life; in urging the fullest, most vigorous use of critical self-examination."     Adlai Stevenson

 FRIDAY:
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.

 "I suggest that we are thieves in a way. If I take anything that I do not need for my own immediate use, and keep it, I thieve it from somebody else. ...In India we have got three millions of people having to be satisfied with one meal a day, and that meal consisting of unleavened bread. ...You and I have no right to anything that we really have until these three millions are clothed and fed better. You and I, who ought to know better, must adjust our wants. ..in order they may be nursed, fed and clothed."      Mohandas K. Gandhi

 "At one time we used to say and believe, 'Give me a fish and I eat for a day; teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.' We know now this isn't enough; we must also make room at the pond. There are still those people in the world whose only hope is that we the powerful will be humble and merciful and just."
     Marilyn Hromatko

 "When you look at the earth from space and see it as a fragile, tiny planet, tremendously sensitive to the depredations of its inhabitants, it's impossible not to think that what we are doing is foolish. There are no national boundaries visible when you look at the earth from space. It's a planet-all one place. All the beings on it are mutually dependent, like living on a lifeboat. Whatever the causes that divide us, the earth will be here a thousand-a million-years from now. The question is: will we?"     Carl Sagan

 "Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is commitment to other men and women. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause, the cause of liberation. As an act of bravery, love cannot be sentimental; as an act of freedom, it must not serve as a pretext for manipulation. It must generate other acts of freedom; otherwise it is not love. Only by abolishing the situation of oppression, is it possible to restore the love which that situation made possible."      P. Freire

SATURDAY:
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. 

"This we know: the earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth. This we know: all things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life. We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves."      Chief Seattle

 “As a child, be glad for the freshness of the world and the newness of questions and answers. Gather into yourself all of the world. Lie on the earth and feast on the sky. Record upon your 'inner ear the sounds of water and wind, leaves and birds, the voices and songs of people. Gather the stars into your mind, and the knowledge of huge spaces, and the length of time. Be rich with friends and companions. You, who are nature, be all of nature, for nothing can be strange to you, and never in the heavens and earth can you be homeless."
     Kenneth Patton

 "The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary is repeated without end. (We see with new eyes new horizons daily) an analogy we shall now trace ( from this belief) is that every action admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on midnoon, and under every deep a lower deep opens."
     Ralph Waldo Emerson